My first Playstation 3 game...and it WAS all it's cracked up to be!
What first appealed to me was the game's moody atmosphere. The dark, mysterious setting is something I enjoy in games although that may be too depressing for many. In fact, I was playing this game last year and I remember my friend commenting on how depressing the game was!
Heavy Rain is not designed for the whole family to play. It wasn't even made for your average FPS player to try! Let's get that straight right now. It's very serious in tone and will cater to particular tastes, especially with it's storyline of a father whose child has been kidnapped by a child murderer. The father, Ethan, sets out to rescue his one and only son (after his last son was accidentally killed) before it's too late!
This game is basically a question and answer game. You witness conversations between characters and you choose an answer for each of them. Almost each answer may depend on a different outcome. There are, I believe, around twelve endings to this game and each answer will see out a particular ending.
However, there are time limits to selecting an answer otherwise the game chooses for you. Perhaps that was the only frustrating thing about it. The fact that I didn't have the chance to take more time to make more sensible choices.
To match the change in story, and as you probably guessed, it rains throughout most of the game with the exception of it's rosy beginning when Ethan is with his family when life could not be any better. It's sunny, he wakes up, drinks coffee, plays with his sons and goes shopping all before things take a fatal turn! Then the title credits roll and the rain starts pouring.
Soon, gone is Ethan's family home in the country side. On his own, he moves to a two bedroom house in an average run down area and sees his son occasionally. The killer soon strikes changing Ethan's destiny forever!
Apart from Ethan, you are also in control of other characters that come into play such as an obsessive detective who has been on the killer's case for quite some time but has no luck with any leads. There is also a female reporter who seemingly wants to make a story out of Ethan for her own financial gain.
The campaign's length is about right and will keep you playing for several days until you reach one of the game's conclusions. The one concern I had was whether I would go back to the game after playing it, but I found myself wanting to play it again and again to see the other endings. Of course, I could have simply gone to Youtube to see them but the game was engaging enough to keep forcing me back and choose different answers.
The graphics are great. There is so much detail and texture, right down to the little individual hairs on the male character's faces. Everything looks gloomy and television episode like. Heavy Rain plays out like a movie or television show which I thought was appropriate given the structure.
The soundtrack, as with the other elements, matches the mood and tone of the game. It's dark, gloomy and adds to the sense of hell that the player finds himself in.
Heavy Rain is something that will create it's own cult fan base. I would not call it an outright classic because that would mean that it has a pop following and it isn't the type of game to gain that.
While others would easily dismiss it to play the umpteenth Call of Duty game, I myself, am still waiting for a game whose structure and design matches Heavy Rain.